Last time I went in there (probably 6-7 years ago now) I got asked 5 times in like 15 minutes if I needed help with something. Like fucking chill! I gave up on trying to find anything because I couldn’t think with being pestered. I also could tell I was being followed through the store by one of their loss prevention people while I was wearing business clothes on the nicer end of town.
I remember going in there once to get a cable for transferring data between drives and it was awesome because otherwise I would have had to wait days for one to come in. Being able to pick up something specialized or computer parts was pretty awesome. It was even more awesome when there were stores dedicated to that. I feel like micro center was the name of the one locally before their stores disappeared.
Opposite experience for me last time I was in one, which was only about a month or so ago when I picked up my Quest 3. They don’t keep them on the shelves so I had to find someone to go get it and, dude, there was NO ONE on the floor. I actually live way closer to one now than I ever did before so I was going in a bit more often since I can just walk down the street and get something in 20 minutes over waiting a day to have it delivered.
I worked there for a bit in college and you have 30 seconds from when someone walks into your section to ‘greet’ people or else the managers will yell at you. It was so stupid and always annoyed everyone.
The one near me (in Canada), just can’t seem to figure out what it wants to be and reinvents itself, and fails further, about every five years or so. They went through a phase with a massive music section, probably 25% or more of the store and tried to take on music store chains - that was always dead empty. Then that section went away for a while, and then they fully closed for a huge overhaul and re-opened with about 75% of the store now just an appliance store. The whole place is a ghost town and used to be quite busy when it was an electronics store like we normally associate them to be. I don’t even shop online anymore because they’ve expanded into the whole “marketplace” concept and are just another amazon where you need to closely check where you’re even buying from. I bet there’d be more success in doing what they’re good at instead of having to try and be like everyone else.
Best Buy has really missed an opportunity to stick it to Amazon. They own a huge amount of retail space that could double as warehouse/online order fulfillment. You know you aren’t getting counterfeit merchandise. Returns are simpler thru walk in. You can inspect before purchase.
Instead, you walk into the retail space and they are out of everything. A warehouse should never be empty.
I went to best buy to buy a phone for my kid recently. They didn’t carry a phone case for the phone they sold me. They had phone cases for every iPhone you could imagine, ones they didn’t even sell. Cases for lots of phones they didn’t sell.
Crazy to me that they don’t at least stock a couple cases for the phones they sell in store.
I decided to finally get an action camera a couple weeks ago. I watched however many hours of video between the GoPro and DJI Action, finally decide on the Action 4, Best Buy says they have it so I go to the store.
There’s fucking no one there. The entire camera area has basically bare shelves, they don’t even have the action 4 displayed or any indication that they sell it despite being one of basically two options, and there’s no one to get to go get me one. I ended up putting in an order on the app and wandering the mall for 20 minutes.
This seems a lot more rational than some other closings where you hear about hundreds closing. Closing a few, but possibly replacing some of them with their smaller stores. Sound much more proactive than some closings we hear about.
headline is somewhat wrong.. thats what they will close just in that year.. they are closing even more _this_year (+24)
As our ongoing practice, we will continue to close existing traditional stores during our rigorous review of stores as their leases come up for renewal. In fiscal '24, we closed 24 stores,” Bilunas said. “And in fiscal '25, we expect to close 10 to 15 stores
as a retailer, might make a lot of sense not trying to close the books every year within a week of Christmas?; OR to prevent all the accountants from working overtime in that period?
The headline is right. Even if you don't know Best Buy's fiscal year, the tenses used in the quote makes it clear that they already closed 24 stores. Best Buy's 2024 fiscal year ended on February 3, 2024. They plan to close 10 to 15 more by roughly one month into 2025, so not literally "by 2025" but close enough.
Add comment